


Prisoner's Dilemma

by eponymous_rose



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-27
Updated: 2010-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:31:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eponymous_rose/pseuds/eponymous_rose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ro and Picard discuss the Maquis for the last time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prisoner's Dilemma

They're sitting much too close in the shadows of a backwater bar, whispering in a parody of intimacy. She catches herself glancing at the coins he's tossed on the table between them; casual, meaningless. He wouldn't have thought to bring them if she hadn't told him.

He's forgotten how to want. They all have.

"If you back out now," he's saying, "you'll throw away everything you worked for."

By the intensity of his voice, she knows he's not just talking about this mission, about the Maquis, because Jean-Luc Picard is the type of person who can throw around phrases like "the good of the Federation" and mean every word. Whenever she tries it – and oh, some days, she tries – the words fall flat, meaningless. All she knows about the greater good she learned from the Cardassian who made her watch her father die.

Maybe Picard sees something in her, some trace of new resolve, and maybe he knows full well what she's intending, what she's starting to believe. Maybe he sees echoes of Macias dying in her eyes. He lowers his head, and she lowers hers, and for a long, terrible moment, they're just close enough to touch.

He talks about boards of inquiry, about a court-martial, about punishment. "Now," he says, "it's your decision."

Choice has always been alien to Ro Laren, just another thing that other people possess, just another thing that she's been made to want. The respect of her fellow officers. Her commission. A piece of sugar candy in a Cardassian's hand.

"I'll carry out my orders, sir," she says, because this time, it's different; this time, there's a way out. This time, it's her choice.

And when he stands, when he lends her the courtesy of a second chance, she knows that it's the last time she'll see any hint of trust in his eyes.

As the night turns slowly to day, she sits alone with her resolve and contemplates the lesser of two betrayals.


End file.
